Another avenue open to a Mandarin, is to turn on the others. That could be why Kingsford is talking to Honor. "I am offering you all the information you need to take the remaining fearless four down. All I'm asking is immunity and asylum to live my life on Manticore."

In a word, defect.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble.—cthia's father. Incident in ?Axiom of Common Sense

There are a lot of choices. I doubt they could actually take over the navy. What would they do with it? Officially they control it anyway.

Moving to another planet might work. There is nothing that says the even come from Earth. Go back to family home and live well.

The real problem is that they have to deal with a crumbling League. They may get a real break if the intelligence agencies find evidence of MAlign meddling. They can blame things on that, say they were being misled.

Yes, they might have to resign but I'd bet each has a good bit of money.

Are the Mandarins even aware of the Harrington Plan? Not the plan "per se." But at least a passing grasp of Manticore's concept of fracturing the League. "Having a clue" in that respect, greatly impacts options and counteracting strategy.

I tend to break things down to the chess board — to ground and cast reality into a familiar setting. Essentially Manticore is going after the Leagues ROOKS. To pin or eliminate them. The KING(s) themselves have already been put in check.

Queenside Castle: For the love of her — their country. The patriotic route.

Kingside Castle. For the love of Mandarins. Their own best interest.

Kingside Castling is generally considered the safest position for the KING, although both are dependent on position and player preference.

Kingside castle = defect and or take the money and run.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble.—cthia's father. Incident in ?Axiom of Common Sense

No matter. Go ahead and laugh. But after you're done laughing at the title, it still stands. You're a Mandarin, so what would you do?

Just like the other Mandarins, you don't phucking know either?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble.—cthia's father. Incident in ?Axiom of Common Sense

If the Mandarins have been fleecing the planet for as long as they have been fleecing the planet, then they should control quite a centicredit between them. Collectively, they should have some real financial clout.

They've been skimming the crème de la crème from the skim.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble.—cthia's father. Incident in ?Axiom of Common Sense

Are the Mandarins even aware of the Harrington Plan? Not the plan "per se." But at least a passing grasp of Manticore's concept of fracturing the League. "Having a clue" in that respect, greatly impacts options and counteracting strategy.

I tend to break things down to the chess board — to ground and cast reality into a familiar setting. Essentially Manticore is going after the Leagues ROOKS. To pin or eliminate them. The KING(s) themselves have already been put in check.

Queenside Castle: For the love of her — their country. The patriotic route.

Kingside Castle. For the love of Mandarins. Their own best interest.

Kingside Castling is generally considered the safest position for the KING, although both are dependent on position and player preference.

Kingside castle = defect and or take the money and run.

The problem is the Mandarins have only recently begun to consider the prospect they could lose or the League might end.

Up until Beowulf's vote, this has all been merely an ugly incident, not an existential crisis.

Yeah the Invincible SLN has lost a few battles. But organizing the Frontier Fleet for deep raiding and putting pressure on the GA to prevent offensive operations seems viable to buy time. The League after all, is too big for any neobarb to conquer!

The Mandarins know about the force disparity, and they know a few core worlds are very unhappy, buying into this 'Manty Hoax' of a secret cabal of Mesan Supermen.

The Mandarins do not know about the Verge going up in flames. Operation Jansus and the Manty response means big chunks of the protectorate, which the Mandarins rely on for the revenue necessary to build a fleet which can stand up to the Manties, are going to be lost to them.

Combine this with a planned large scale revolt in Maya, and the odds that other Sectors are going up in flames, and suddenly the plan to put pressure on the GA with Frontier Fleet forces doesn't work.

Plus, once it becomes more clear that the Mandarins are not able to deal with the insurrections and the GA, as well as plan on assaulting core worlds breaking away, it becomes much more likely for the whole thing to fall apart.

The SL has been coasting for a long time, and the Mandarins were able to get away with this because 'it worked'. If nothing else the core interstellars will demand leadership change.

The Mandarins already have the reins. They just need to put on their big boy pants, be just a little bit more ruthless, grasp the reins and seize the total power that they've been given.

They already control the navy and everyone who has rank was favored in. The alternative for the navy is dismemberment. A total disbanding amidst the crumbling of the League.

Questions: (1) Where does the huge BF fleet go? Better be someplace really rich because thats a lot of hungry hulls to feed and clothe. (2) Does FF come with them? more Hungry hulls to feed. (3) fleets are expensive wirthout the backing of a healthy planetary economy or 2. (3) Do they become Bucaneers to defray expenses?

feyhunde wrote:The problem is the Mandarins have only recently begun to consider the prospect they could lose or the League might end.

The Mandarins do not know about the Verge going up in flames. Operation Jansus and the Manty response means big chunks of the protectorate, which the Mandarins rely on for the revenue necessary to build a fleet which can stand up to the Manties, are going to be lost to them.

They certainly know no one in the verge with any sense would stay under the thumb of OFS.

feyhunde wrote:Combine this with a planned large scale revolt in Maya, and the odds that other Sectors are going up in flames, and suddenly the plan to put pressure on the GA with Frontier Fleet forces doesn't work.

Plus, once it becomes more clear that the Mandarins are not able to deal with the insurrections and the GA, as well as plan on assaulting core worlds breaking away, it becomes much more likely for the whole thing to fall apart.

The SL has been coasting for a long time, and the Mandarins were able to get away with this because 'it worked'. If nothing else the core interstellars will demand leadership change.

Still leaves them with BF to hold the core and as much of the shell as possible. And the core is the richest worlds.

The questiion is, in the face of growing anarchy (The Detweiller Plan) does the core hang together or create their own SDFs?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy. Ursula K. LeGuinn

You have to remember that part of the quintet's problem is that they are aware that the league is inherently unstable and an unworkable proposition. The league's genesis is rooted in a time before interstellar trade beyond the equivalent of small oared dugout canoes hauling small packs and peddlers between islands over calm seas, existed. The League is, in fact, a result of the systems close enough to Sol to help developing the industries to needed to help Sol, which, in turn, meant that it became possible to potentially ship more than information and low mass samples of critical pieces of technology, the protected waters galley coaster equivalent. Interstellar warfare was only a theoretical and pointless proposition at that point. Although the league managed to react to changing circumstances, the methods through which it did so resulted in ever more problems. Particularly as each accommodation created an ever growing culture of corruption, which resulted in there being ever more need for funds, ever fewer of which would actually reach where they were supposed to go. The League's bureaucracy is truly aware that the League is conceptually one major catastrophe from collapse, it has been noted by psycho-historians, but those bureaucrats on Old Terra generally cannot conceptualize any catastrophe that the league cannot head off through sheer momentum. That momentum is, in fact, what hold the league together. As for using the Solarian League Navy ruthlessly, remember the league is a bureaucracy, and the Navy and civilian bureaucracies are different. At the highest level all those bureaucracies do is determine how to implement the policies that have previously been established. Deep down, no single person is in charge, and we have been told that certain actions will cause the rank and file of the navy to rebel, like, for instance, a clear violation of the Edict. In fact, that gives me an idea for one of the possible meanings of Uncompromising Honor: a coup in response to such a violation, even though the conspirators involve know that they are signing the league's true death warrant, as the edict demands.